May 11 Hi-Ho, Hi-Ho, Back to the Doc I Go

Who knew a lip could cause so much trouble?  Sunday my top lip started hurting.  I thought I had burned my lips in the sun while I was out on my in-laws deck on Mother’s Day.  Monday morning my lip hurt a little more.  Monday night it felt like I had a pulse in my lip. This morning I woke up at the crack of dawn because I couldn’t sleep.  My lip “pulse” had turned into a full fledged heart beat.  I looked in the mirror and my lip was absolutely huge.  It looked like I got popped in the mouth.  It was so swollen and just flat out ugly. 

So what do you think I did?  Took a picture on my phone, and sent it to my sisters of course.  I knew they’d have good comments and we’d all have a good laugh.  Then I left for PT. 

I walked in, and my therapist said something to the effect of, “Ummm I think you may need to have that checked out.”  Even though it killed, we both were laughing in no time.  She said, “How do YOU get these things?”  My favorite comment of the day was from another therapist who said, “Wow, people pay big bucks for a lip like that.”  Throughout the next hour and a half that I was at physical therapy, a bunch of the other therapists commented that they thought I really needed to go to my family doc in case it was infected.   

That was what I was dreading to hear.  Not ANOTHER doctor’s appointment. 

Anyways, after I did my therapy like normal, I promised I would go get it checked out.  I went to my doctor’s office (which happened to be next door).  When the receptionist saw me she said, “Oh honey, you need to be seen.”  She tried to pull strings and get me in but no such luck since it was so last minute and all the doctors were booked. 

So the very nice receptionist sent me from that office to Lansing Urgent Care.  Let me just say that that was one of the best urgent care experiences I have ever had (and if you know me, I’ve had many).  I was seen within no time.  As the doctor poked and prodded,  I winced and jumped the whole time.  I think my lip hurt more than my prolotherapy treatments.  After a few minutes she told me it looked like “Cellulitis and an abscess”.  She told me my lymph nodes were also super swollen and I had a temp of 102, so it appeared to her that my body was trying to fight off the infection.  She wrote me a prescription for an antibiotic, and also took cultures of my lip, so she could send the cells to the lab just to be sure it’s not other types of viruses. 

I think what took the longest out of the whole appointment was listing my meds and spelling E-h-l-e-r-s D-a-n-l-o-s and P-o-s-t-u-r-a-l O-r-t-h-o-s-t-a-t-i-c T-a-c-h-y-c-a-r-d-i-a. 

As I left I have to say I was glad I listened and went.  Hopefully now that I am on antibiotics, the swelling will start to go down so I won’t be able to see my lip sticking out from my face anymore, because that is just weird.  I will spare you the pictures. 

Come to think of it, I think my body is just weird.  But it’s all mine, and I will do my best to love it; defective collagen, stretchy blood vessels, infected lips, and all.